Leaving No One Behind in the Green Transition and Blue Growth

Engagement of local communities and policy coherence across different sectors are essential to ensure that no one is left behind in the green transition. Coastal communities face many challenges that are difficult to adapt to, including those associated with blue growth. In this article, outcomes from two Horizon Europe projects were used to explore barriers to applying the Leave No One Behind (LNOB) principle. A policy coherence framework was applied to assess the level of coherence between policies identified to create conflicts and disempowerment in an Eastern Limassol case study. The coastal community is industrialised yet still supports a diversity of habitats and endangered species. The region is subject to multiple, overlapping EU policy streams, creating policy incoherence and local tensions. The article highlights the blue economy as a paradigm that inevitably will lead to conflicts between ecological, social, and economic priorities, and how the LNOB principle can be essential in bringing these together in a holistic approach. However, there are several limitations to the principle’s applicability in the current policy landscape. The main mechanism for equitable transition in the blue economy, the Just Transition, is not applicable under many circumstances, leaving no strict legal framework for implementation of equity and equality in the transition of coastal areas. The mainstream understanding of the blue economy is still dominated by the hope of win-win-win scenarios with limited transparency about the trade-offs and conflicts at stake, and few mechanisms that offer legal consequences.